2014 Tour de France Close to End

The 101st edition of the Tour de France will be coming to an end on July 25th in the city of Paris at the Champs-Élysées. Today on the last mountain leg of the Tour de France, Stage 18th of this amazing cycling event the Italian Vincenzo Nibali crushed all the riders and won over the last five miles uphill.

This is Nibali´s fourth stage win of the Tour as he finished more than a minute ahead of Thibaut Pinot of France. “I didn’t want to lose command. My goal was to win here,” Nibali said. “It was important to me to win another stage in the Pyrenees. The team worked really hard and this victory is for them.”

On Friday Stage 19 in southwestern France will likely end in a sprint finish and the Astana team is getting ready for the next challenge. Nibali and his teammates will keep an eye on the riders closest to him in the general classification.

These are Stage 18 standings:

Rider

Time

Vincenzo Nibali

4hr, 04min, 17 sec

Thibaut Pinot

+1 min, 10 sec

Rafal Majka

+1 min, 12 sec

Jean-Christophe Peraud

+1 min, 15 sec

Tejay van Garderen

+1 min, 15 sec

Romain Bardet

+1 min, 53 sec

Bauke Mollema

+1 min, 57 sec

Leopold Koenig

+1 min, 57 sec

Haimar Zubeldia

+1 min, 59 sec

Top 3 Tour de France Stage 18 Riders:

Current Rank

Rider

Notes

1 (1)

Vincenzo Nibali (Astana)

After 15 stages of the 2014 Tour, Nibali has won three, spent all but two days in yellow and looks clearly dominant. He’s the best climber in the race and is riding with an authority that no one seems willing or able to challenge. Barring a crash, illness or some extraordinary turn of events, the victory is his.

2 (6)

Thibaut Pinot (FDJ)

Pinot has climbed exceptionally in this Tour, all the more remarkable because he doesn’t have a strong team behind him. There are still a few challenges: Tuesday’s descent off the Port des Bales is a potential weak spot. But he’s said to have been working on time trialing and, so far, Ag2r has not been able to rattle him on climbs.

3 (7)

Romain Bardet (Ag2r-la Mondiale)

France’s newest great hope, Bardet is showing excellent progression since his debut Tour last year (15th overall). He’s locked in a fight with Pinot for the podium and the best young rider honors, and has the stronger team. He’ll try to press the case on descents, but he may be vulnerable in the final time trial.

The following are some of the key riders to win the last stage of the 2014 Tour de France on Sunday: Vincenzo Nibali, Richie Porte, Marcel Kittel, Peter Sagan, Alejandro Valverde and Tejay van Garderen.

Here are a couple of videos on the latest stages 17 and 18 of the Tour de France:

The notorious Alexandre Vinokourov is general manager of Nibali’s Astana team. Nibali’s team-mate Michele Scarponi was suspended for blood doping, and his directeur sportif Giuseppe Martinelli was Marco Pantani’s former team manager.

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